The following information is provided to assist the reader in understanding technologies disclosed below and the environment in which such technologies may typically be used. The terms used herein are not intended to be limited to any particular narrow interpretation unless clearly stated otherwise in this document. References set forth herein may facilitate understanding of the technologies or the background thereof. The disclosure of all references cited herein are incorporated by reference.
Diabetes is a chronic lifelong disease caused by a carbohydrate metabolic disorder which has been recognized as one of the greatest causes of death in the developed countries. As a result, there is a high popularity of diabetes monitoring devices in the global market. The market has generated sales of $9.7 billion in the year of 2011, and is estimated to be worth $27.42 billion by 2022.
While currently available diabetes monitoring devices are predominantly based on blood glucose analysis, the development of similar devices utilizing non-invasive, inexpensive and/or easy-to-use breath analysis could change the paradigm of self-diagnosis and self-monitoring of diabetes. Breath acetone was discovered to be a biomarker for diabetes as its concentration increases significantly during periods of glucose deficiency. Acetone concentrations above 1.7 ppm or higher (up to several hundred ppm) could be detected in breath for those who are diabetic, while the breath of healthy human typically contains less than 1 ppm. Therefore, detection of breath acetone has great promise to become an alternative diagnostic or monitoring method for the patients with diabetes. Current clinical breath acetone detection methods are mostly based on gas chromatography (GC) which is expensive and inconvenient.